It just occurred to me that Reality TV doesn’t get enough credit for its role in destroying civilization. It doesn’t affect my life in any major way. I watch streaming services or find entertainment on YouTube. It’s like bad pop – easily avoidable.

But I really do think it’s hurt our society. I wish I could talk to David Foster Wallace about it he saw the danger of entertainment addiction before anybody.

I feel like Reality TV gave us all the idea we ought to care what other people thought about us by making stars out of regular folks. People who work in show biz know pretending to be who you’re not can make you crazy.

Now we do it on social media all day long and no surprise, we’re all nuts.

I’m not sure when I first became aware of Reality TV as a concept. Probably with The Real World on MTV my last two years of college, ’88 and ’89 I think. I remember liking Jon. I just thought it was another type of game show.

The craze for these shows started when I wasn’t paying attention. I was a busy reporter and too busy for much TV. I mostly had cable when I had it because I couldn’t have it when I was a kid. Missed the coolest MTV years.

Reality TV slowly started to creep into my awareness. I heard it was proliferating because it was cheap to make. I started to notice a few. I started watching junk TV to kill time when I got off work.

I was mesmerized for a while. My guilty pleasures were world’s biggest explosion videos and car chases. I was like, run bad guy! Make ’em work for it! I could feel my IQ dropping, but I could go on like that for hours.

Before long Reality TV just became what TV was. I didn’t really mind. They were easy entertainment. It didn’t matter if you missed episodes I watched Ice Road Truckers, Orange County Choppers, The Deadliest Catch.

If I knew the narratives and personalities were fake, but I wouldn’t have said wrong. It was only entertainment. I rolled my eyes at some of the “plots” but thought, eh, it’s just entertainment. Doesn’t hurt anybody. Now I’m not so sure.

I watched John & Kate Plus 8 for a while until it turned out their happy family was actually kind of a mess. That taught me a lesson, I had convinced myself I kinda knew the people, when of course I didn’t. The show told me who they were and I accepted that as real.

Now we’ve had scandals involving some “Reality Star” or other. I barely pay attention. The Quiverful family thing going bad seemed like karma.

This kind of cheap entertainment was probably inevitable when we started having so many channels on cable, and now streaming services, YouTube and multiplayer games to compete with for eyeballs.

I think it really messed up the average American’s bullshit detector. People identify with these characters and believe they’re friends. All because of scripts that somebody wrote. It’s no wonder a charismatic Reality Star convinced so many people he could run the country.